Winds of Change
by Unforgettable Green Eyes
Summary: The darkness sweeps over them, drowning out the light everywhere and tainting everything it comes into contact with, but there are some things it can't touch. Rated M. Cleris.
1. Traverse Town

**NOTE:** Cleris fans, enter with caution—this is going to be a three-part short story consisting of love scenes between Cloud and Aeris. Key words being 'love scenes' here with one scene per part/chapter. It will be completely focused on and centered around the lovemaking and it will get _very_ detailed. If the subject matter is not to your liking, now is the time to turn back around. You've been warned. For the rest of you who like this stuff as much as I do, well, enjoy. (_**Update:**_ Not that I'm a prude or anything, but there are times when even I don't like going straight from one sex scene to another. If possible, I recommend you spread these chapters out over the course of a few days rather than reading them back to back or it might get to be a bit too much. But of course, it's up to you! =) )

* * *

**Winds of Change**

_**Part 1: Traverse Town (The Beginning)**_

The day has come.

They've anticipated this moment their entire lives but the time finally feels right. At the age of seventeen, they are both still young although it seems like they've been waiting for this day, and for each other, since long before either of them had ever existed.

On the far side of the house, the streets are bustling with refugees who have come from all over the galaxy in a last desperate attempt to escape the ongoing wars raging on so many worlds. For many of these folk who have lost everything, this strange town will become much more than the temporary haven they'd initially sought when they'd first arrived upon this world.

But inside the privacy and quiet of her room, they are no longer aware of anything else but what is happening between them. The outside world with its never-ending troubles have receded into the background until it no longer even registers on their minds at the conscious level as they focus their full attention solely on one another. Just for this one brief moment in time, they are able to step back and forget about all the grief and terror that is a constant companion, and awaiting them just beyond the four walls of her bedroom.

Life goes on and they are anxious to live it.

Young, innocent, awkward, this is the first time they are really able to feel and explore one another's bodies freely. Eyes roving, hands wandering, lips traveling, they learn each other's bodies with awe and wonder, excitement, and a bit of embarrassment and trepidation as well. There is a small amount of clumsy fumbling as they shed their clothes, some nervous giggling as they try to shush each other, and a whole lot of kissing and touching.

It feels like the most natural thing in the world when he settles himself between her legs on the bed and comes down over her. She receives him gladly, relishing the feel of warm male skin sliding, brushing against hers, the weight of his body covering her own. His gold-blond spikes glint in the light of the late afternoon sun coming through the window, and she stares into his cobalt blues with all the love in her heart. She gasps at the first feel of him, hot and hard, prodding at her, parting her damp folds, and she tenses slightly, bites her lip, trying to relax as he arches his lower body in.

There is pain as he slowly enters and pushes inside her, and a small sound escapes her throat anyway. Bare knuckles graze her cheek and she melts into his touch with a soft sigh. Drawing back a short distance, he thrusts forward harder. Her hips jerk as something tears but he soothes her with soft murmurs in her ear, his lips brushing gently, sweetly over hers. His body is coiled tight but he lies motionless above her, and the moment is so beautiful, so perfect, hot tears burn at the back of her eyelids, and she wraps her arms around his neck, and pulls him down so that they are flushed against one another.

"Aeris," he breathes, and the pain dulls and subsides with the sound of her name against her lips.

She whispers his name in reply as she feels him deep inside her, filling her full, throbbing against the tight confines of her body. Her hips suddenly squirm underneath him of their own accord. He gasps, presses his groin into the cradle of her hips, and she lets out a sob of pleasure as she takes him even deeper. Kneeling up, he grabs her hips and pulls her forward; her heated cry echoes in the silence that follows as they stare tautly at each other for long minutes. Perspiration dots her forehead as he holds himself hard against her, both of them trembling, not daring to breathe, to move, as they wait for her fluttering tissues to adjust to his thick presence, the feel of his naked flesh inside hers almost enough to set them both off.

"Cloud," she whimpers, sensation rippling all along where he is buried inside her.

He gives an answering groan and bends down to rest his forehead against hers. "Are you all right?"

Slowly, tentatively, she draws in a deep, shuddering breath. Expels it even more slowly. She nods her head and kisses him reassuringly as she lets her palms roam across the hard muscles of his back. Lifting back up, he slides his hands to her waist, over her midriff, then up to her breasts. He touches them reverently, squeezing the soft swells that are heavy with need, rolling the hard nipples between his fingers, and she gasps, arches her back.

His mouth closes over a straining pink bud, and lightning streaks across her body and fire lashes everywhere as he works at it with his teeth and tongue while his hips swivel slowly against her, moving himself inside her in deep-seated nudges. She pants, digs her nails into his shoulders, and feels him suckle her harder. Her inner muscles contract around him, and she whimpers, calls out for him; he bites down on her, causing her body to nearly jackknife off the bed. A thumb rubs gently over the underside of one breast as she thrashes under him, fighting, gasping for breath. He releases her nipple and comes back over her to rest his weight fully upon her so he can take her mouth instead, claiming it just as he's claimed her body. She moans at the sweet and hot taste of him as he begins pumping in and out of her, as careful and gentle as a boy can be during his first time with a girl, and she gasps and clutches him to her at the wonderfully amazing sensations she is feeling down there and all over.

He's a little too rough, too eager, with the inexperience of youth, grasping her shoulders, her hips, her hair to grip them painfully tight but she barely notices it when her body is burning white-hot. His strokes at first are uneven and heavy, but he quickly learns and settles into a rhythm of entering and retreating with such fluidity and so smooth, she moans at the intensity of it.

She holds him even closer and what little pain there is left is soon gone. It feels good. _He_ feels good.

Slender legs wind themselves about his waist to lock behind the small of his back as with a sigh into his mouth, she abandons herself to the wild beauty of their passionate coupling, entrusting her body to his care. They both let go and allow their bodies to do what they need to do; her hips are lifting up on their own, instinctively matching his movements, and he starts circling his hips hard against her on each downward stroke, and she cries out, tightens all about him.

He begins moving faster, stoking the fire inside her, as their bodies bump and collide with an audible thud each time they meet. Every forceful stroke is sending him deep into her heat, each repetitive glide back into her receptive body slick, erotic, rubbing fiercely against her insides, that combined with the emotions running through them, make her feel like she'll explode. She wants, _needs_, to explode.

Her whimpers and his grunts are muffled by each other's mouths, and the room is thick with the musk coming from their sweat-drenched bodies as he continues to drive into her wet warmth. The pleasure builds and builds to the point where it becomes painful again, and every overly sensitized nerve in her body is electrified and becomes more sensitive still, and she keens as they cling to each other, and their pelvises crash harder and harder.

He is killing her with such exquisite torture. Lungs working overtime, she tries desperately to find air as her body meets his mindlessly, frantically, reaching for—

"_Oh gods! Cloud!"_

"_Come with me—!"_

Her body seizes as it suddenly hits her and she _does_ explode. Everything explodes. She is crying out his name as he sends her flying, tumbling, catapulting headfirst over the cliff. Her inner muscles spasm all around him, and as her body writhes violently under his, he lunges forward, and she peaks again. As if from far away, she hears his hoarse shout as he buries himself deep inside her one last time, feels it reverberate throughout her. His warmth fills her as he groans and convulses against her, then gasping, shuddering, his body seems to give out, and he collapses on top of her, his lips gentling over hers.

Panting, her body tingling, her muscles continuing to clench and unclench all around him, she clutches him tightly, and her hands tremble as she runs her fingers through his sweaty hair.

He finally breaks their kiss and she turns her face into his neck and hugs him fiercely to her, this boy with the serious blue eyes and quiet nature who has won her heart so completely. Who, despite the cool façade he presents to the rest of the world, wants to be accepted and needed more than most, and has opened up to her and her alone under the gentle, and persistent, love and attention she showers upon him.

"Wow."

"Wow," she echoes the sentiment, and they giggle breathlessly like the teenagers they are.

"How can anything feel that good?"

"Because we belong."

Pushing the rumpled sheets off the bed, he rolls them over so that she is on top and they lapse into a contented silence. Time seems to stand still as they rest together, their hands drifting languidly over each other's bodies. He is still inside her, and she wriggles around a bit, and settles herself more comfortably atop him. Sighing happily, she flattens his hair, combs it back up with her fingers, and flattens it again.

She is surprised when she feels a sudden pull at her scalp and turns her head to see that he is also playing idly with her hair. He has it spread out across her back, and is twirling a lock of long brown hair around his finger, and tugging at it hard enough to make her wince.

"Cloud," she admonishes him gently. He chuckles, lifts his fingers to brush her bangs out of her face, and leans forward to rub his nose against hers. She giggles as she catches his hand with her own and her laughter abruptly fades. Bringing his hand around, she frowns at the fresh marks she hadn't noticed earlier that mar his skin. "You're still not wearing gloves."

He shrugs. "They're nothing."

"They're bleeding."

He tries to pull his hand back but she grips it tight as she seals the cuts that their physical exertions have opened up before moving onto his other hand.

"See? I don't need gloves."

She shakes her head ruefully as she pushes herself up slightly to look down at him and finds him giving her a smile few people ever see. She smiles back into his beautiful eyes and her breath catches in her throat—she has never seen them such a startling, vibrant shade of blue before. They are practically glowing, brighter and clearer than the sky on a warm summer's morning. She stares at them, knowing that the way they look right at this moment has just become an indelible part of her memory. Just as everything else about him already is.

Dropping down onto him again, she embraces him more tightly, and works her legs around his so that she is holding him in every way possible.

She presses her lips to his damp hair, his ear, his cheek, his jaw, taking all of him in, and he nuzzles her throat familiarly and in a manner she recognizes as uniquely his own, and tears of wonder fill her eyes.

He is utterly perfect.

For one heart-stopping second, she almost wishes she really could freeze time so she can just stay here in this moment with him for always. But there is also such a keen sense of joy in knowing that this pleasure, this experience, this merging of their bodies and souls, is just the first of many for them. There is so much more to come. They will always be together like this. Nothing and no one can ever tear them apart.

In a time when there is so much terror and darkness spreading across the worlds, she knows they are beyond lucky to even be alive. To be able to have a moment like this so that all the horrors of the wars happening between the stars can't even touch them is unimaginable.

Here, in their new home, they've managed to find each other again and make a new start.

But it is just the beginning.

"Forever, Cloud."

* * *

_Part 2: Hollow Bastion (Five Years Later)_


	2. Hollow Bastion

**Winds of Change**

_**Part 2: Hollow Bastion (Five Years Later)**_

He stares down at her and she can see the uncertainty and questions still in his eyes even in the velvet darkness that enfolds them, blankets them, nearly suffocating them. The nights here on their homeworld are no longer as they once were. The presence of the evil that had invaded and conquered it years ago still remains everywhere, covering every surface, lingering in every crack and fissure. It is thick and stifling, permeating the very air with the infestation that has stolen into every pore of this world, and is especially felt during nighttime when pitch blackness reigns.

And yet, his wing, unfolded to its full impressive width and size, looms behind him and over her, blacker than the deepest night. Unyielding, unforgiving, a cruel, brutal, ever-present reminder of his fall…not that she really notices its claim or cares to give it any thought. She barely even notices how the air seems different tonight, as though something's being forced back, to give way, so that there is nothing but them and this and a darkness that has lost its malignant feel.

She lifts up onto her elbows and reaches a hand toward him to trace her fingertips gently down the side of his face, carefully noting all the changes the years have brought about in him and rememorizing every detail again. Curving her hand over the back of his neck, she touches her lips to his face, dropping feather-light kisses everywhere.

"I want you."

The words haven't left his lips before she is falling back down onto the bed to wrap her legs around him and dig her nails into his shoulder as she pulls him down with her. He braces his clawed hand against the bed and uses the other to guide himself to her before gripping her hip to hold her still for him. She feels him at her entrance, and her breath hitches in her throat and holds as he penetrates her and boldly squeezes inside, and her body draws him in. His hips press down hard against hers and he groans out her name as she lets out her breath and gives a heated whimper.

"_Cloud…"_ Her soft sigh fills the dark bedroom.

It's been such a long time and there are so many changes in him, yet the feel of him is so familiar to her that hot tears spring immediately to her eyes.

She is complete once again.

"_Welcome home_." Always has it been this way between them; this sense of homecoming and belonging that they feel whenever their bodies come together.

He responds by withdrawing slightly and sliding back in again until their hips meet to ground forcefully together, and she lets out a startled squeak. He grinds himself deeper into her, circling his hips hard against her, and the sensations are too much as everything else suddenly shuts down and she can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but feel. The only thing she is aware of is him, so solid, so real, so _there_, inside her. Every nerve and cell in her body zeroes in on his turgid length buried deep inside her tight tissues as she ripples all around him, squeezing him frenziedly, and dark spots are appearing in front of his face.

He quickly cups her cheek, brings his face down to hers. "Breathe, Aeris," he orders harshly. _"Breathe._"

His voice pierces through the blackness enveloping her as his warm breath fans lightly across her face and she obediently opens her mouth. She sucks in great heaving gulps of air, feels her chest ease, then seem to expand. Her vision clearing, she closes her arms about his neck, tries not to move, but her traitorous body clenches wildly around him, causing him to moan and push against her, and she whimpers desperately, digs her nails deep into his skin as he pulses harder inside her.

Just as she fears she'll expire, he lowers himself down onto her and becomes utterly still, resting quietly on top of her, letting her get used to the feel of him again. Under her hands, his muscles are rigid, bulging, tight with strain, as is the rest of his body. But he lies calmly, patiently above her, rubbing his cheek against hers until her body has become less agitated. Nestled within her depths, he knows the instant she's ready; he is quick to respond as he turns his head and touches his lips to the tip of her nose. In the next moment, his mouth is crashing over hers, and he is driving possessively into her mouth, stroking her tongue, feeling her out, and she does the same to him.

He eventually ends the kiss to lift up slightly, taking most of his weight off of her, and with his hands clutching fistfuls of her hair, braces his arms near her head as he begins moving above her. Her thoughts scattering, she grips him tightly as tears leak slowly out of the corners of her eyes, and she revels in this union that has been denied them for so long.

As their bodies take over control of their carnal dance, she never takes her eyes from him, watching his face, seeing every nuance of his expression, studying him there in the darkness. He's older, rougher, and there's a tension in his body that wasn't there before. He's haunted and through it all, the shame and guilt never leave his eyes. There is an air of urgency and need to their joining that has never been present before, and he seems more desperate and fierce, seeking something from her that only she can give. But there is still the same gentleness and tenderness to his lovemaking that she's always known, that still does her in completely, that's still all him.

The steady creaking of the bed is accompanied by the sound of his name, soft, breathy, and full of need, as her heart cries for him even though her body is on fire under his at the moment, and is responding to his every movement, every thrust.

"_Take me."_

Panting, she nods and arches her body up to him, willing him to find what he needs, wishing to wipe that tormented look out of his eyes, and he slams so hard against her, she cries out, and he ceases moving above her.

"It's good," she reassures him, rolls her hips against him, dragging forth a low masculine groan from his throat. She does it again, begs him raggedly, _"_It's so good. Don't stop. Please don't stop._ Don't ever stop." _She will always want him. She will always take him any way she can have him.

He takes her at her word and she groans with relief as she surrenders her body and everything else over to him, pushing her own needs to the side for the moment to see to his. He glides in and out of her with hard rhythmic strokes that reach to the heart of her, and she meets every thrust with one of her own, unable to stop the breathless little cries that are coming from her lips with each short, painful exhalation.

But it's been far too long and her body is burning with desires she's ignored all this time. Despite herself, she feels the pleasure building higher and higher, and she whimpers fretfully, scratches and scores her nails down his arms, trying to hold herself back.

"No!" It's too close; she pushes herself up to sit, forcing him to kneel up so she can ride him instead, changing the angle and depth of penetration to try to ease some of the pressure inside her. One of his hands drops to her hip, helping, forcing her to go faster, while the other grips her shoulder, holding her to him. Something sharp is piercing into her shoulder blade but the sting only spurs her on; she tightens her arms around him, deliberately lets her right hand find its way over to the huge wing protruding from his spine, making loud whipping noises with each thrust of his hips. He stiffens at her touch but she moves harder against him, circling her hips each time she comes down. His breath shudders in her ear, then hands rough with calluses she's never felt before are coasting over her again, fingers and talons digging into soft skin in several places that she knows will leave bruises later. He leans forward to take a tightly furled nipple into his mouth, and her neck arches back as she moans feverishly, her hair swaying behind her, brushing over his knees, loving him as well. She feels the pull of his mouth on her breast, his teeth scraping her sensitive nipple, his moist breath against her hot flesh, and him working so deep into her heated core...

"Please..._ Cloud_..." Whimpering, uttering nonsense pleas, she rocks faster, and it is too much. _"Please—!"_

The first tremors begin and she slams herself down and flings her head back; his name breaks out of her throat as her mind and body shatters. As she unravels all around him, she feels his muscles tighten further, his talons sink deeper into her bottom, and he lets out an anguished cry into her damp skin, his body stiffening, his release spilling inside her. They clutch at each other as excruciating spasms that seem to have no beginning and no end rent through their bodies, clinging together, trying to breathe, to hold on, to make it through.

His body gives one final jerk against hers and he lifts his head and wraps his arms around her. Gasping, trembling, she comes to her senses enough to squeeze her own arms and legs around him, and they let their heads fall weakly onto each other's shoulder as all is quiet now but for the sound of their heavy breathing.

Her inside tissues still contracting and releasing all around him, she tightens her limbs and muscles around him more fiercely, wondering, and hoping against hope that the strength of her love will be enough to make him stay this time.

But it is a futile hope, she fears.

As if it hears or senses her thoughts, the wing flutters softly behind him, reminding her that while the tide has finally turned in these endless battles with the Heartless, all is not back to normal yet. There is still much more fighting to come. And the rebuilding and healing has just barely begun. For the worlds that have been won back so far and the countless life-forms that dwell on them, there is much work still to be done.

And for him as well. He still has to overcome the darkness inside of him that has manifested itself into a physical state in the form of the wing and claw he now bears.

She strokes the wing gently, soothingly, with hands still shaking from her climax, letting it know that she means it no harm. A direct result or by-product of darkness or not, there is nothing else for her to do but love it now. It is part of the make-up of the man who is simply flawless in her eyes. Holding him tight with one arm, she reaches her other one down to find his left hand, and laces her fingers with his leathery ones.

"Aeris," he says softly, and her heart clenches at the sound of his voice. How can such tenderness and warmth be mixed with so much despair?

"I'm here. I'll always be here," she whispers even though he's never asked such a thing of her. He's never asked anything of her. But she gives all the same. She loves. And she tries desperately not to ask anything of him in return, only that he'll always come back to her. "Whenever you need me."

There is a long silence in which she can hear and feel their wildly galloping hearts pound even more furiously against each other, and she waits anxiously, fearfully.

"Promise?"

Her throat is painfully tight as she touches her lips to his ear and nods, inhaling deeply of his wonderful earthy scent that she remembers more clearly than anything from just yesterday or even today. She feels the soft, wet strands of his hair brush her face, the cold metal of the stud in his ear against her mouth, and she nips at it until it is warm between her lips. A small, strangled sound comes out of his throat, and he slowly pulls back to look at her. She meets his solemn gaze in the night, wishing she could see the lovely blue of his eyes; he breaks free of the grip she has on his clawed hand to bring both his hands up to frame her face between his palms, staring at her the whole while in the darkness. Smoothing her hair back from her face, he leans his forehead against hers as the tears flow freely down her cheeks.

* * *

_Part 3: Radiant Garden (The End...?)_

I'd like to give a special shout-out to kikofreako, Gabriela Romero, Soul of AquaBlue, and PaIN-cAUseD-bY-AddIcTioN. A great many thanks and sorry it took so long to update!


	3. Radiant Garden

**Winds of Change**

_**Part 3: Radiant Garden (The End...?)**_

The darkness serves as a covering for her as she loves him gently in the night. The sound of both their labored breathing fill the room but it is his breathing that she focuses on, his gasps and groans, the tell-tale jerks of his body that let her know where to go and what to do.

She makes her way back up his chest, lavishing every inch of him with warm, wet kisses, nipping gently here and there, flicking her tongue to the spots that she knows are particularly sensitive. Tenderly, reverently, she touches her lips to the hard muscles flexing under her palms, conveying the all-encompassing love she feels for him with every kiss and every touch. She lets the tips of her breasts graze him lightly as she moves over him, and her long hair, falling in front of one shoulder to hang down in loose, thick waves around her face, trails alongside her, caressing him too, and he draws in his breath sharply.

Swinging a leg over him, she straddles him, and braces her hands on either side of his head to bend down over him, comfortable in the knowledge that nothing else can touch her here with him. The blackness of night is simply that for the moment: blackness. Normal, clean. Uncontaminated. But dawn will be arriving in a few hours. Far, far too soon. For only the second time in her life, she dreads the coming of day, wishes with all her might she could somehow hold it back. She doesn't ever have to see light again if it means she can have this.

Another gasp sounds in her ear, and her despondent thoughts are forgotten as she lifts her head and smiles down at him in the heavy darkness. "Still ticklish, I see," she whispers. "You finally awake?"

He makes some sort of sound, somewhere in between a laugh and a groan, and her pulses quicken and her breathing comes even faster. "Obviously."

He sits up under her, bringing her up with him, and with his back against the headboard, resettles her on him. Hard hands stroke up and down her back, her hips, her waist, and she captures his left one, brings it in front of her face.

"Nothing there," he says, his voice a low murmur in the warm night.

"No." She runs her fingers over the hand that has seen far more bloodshed than any one human hand ever should. "Nothing new." She smiles gratefully, and presses her lips to the rough surface of his palm before releasing it to take hold of his shoulders. With both his hands free, he reaches up to squeeze her breasts, tugging at the nipples that have tightened for him, and she gasps, rolls her hips as everything suddenly slips away again.

"Cloud."She leans forward to cover his face with kisses, mapping every feature of it that is so incredibly dear and achingly familiar to her. She seals her lips over his, making her breath his breath, and his breath her breath, as a callused hand grips her hair while the other massages her breast gently. Their breathing rasp harshly and she slants her mouth over his, locking them more firmly together, and deepening the kiss. His other hand slides around to cup her bottom, pressing, molding her body to his, and she moans softly, rubbing herself sensuously, urgently against him. She wants to make the most of this short time they have together. "I need you again." It is an apology as well.

"I need you too."

She moves to take him inside her but he has other ideas.

Wrapping his arms around her, he rolls her onto her back in one smooth move, and she quickly widens her legs to make more room for him. She stares breathlessly up at him, barely able to make out the pale spikes of his hair as he kneels up between her legs; he pulls her lower body up and forward by the hips, over his thighs and onto his lap, and she slides her hands over his tight stomach, the muscles of his chest, reveling in the heat of his skin under her palms. She feels his hard length probing at her folds, and she gasps as he breaches her, sliding slowly, firmly back into her slick warmth. She shivers, quickly hitches her legs up and around him to hook her ankles behind his back, and bites her lip as he hisses in his breath and pushes in until they are groin to groin.

Her body welcomes him in again, and she wiggles her hips, then stiffens abruptly as she has to struggle just to breathe through the even more exquisite sensation that the movement causes. He lets out a guttural groan and she replies with a ragged moan of her own. He grabs her waist, sets her down on the bed again, and grounds himself hard against her, and she chokes back a sob as he presses her into the mattress.

Embedded to the hilt inside her, he pauses, letting the moment sink in. Letting her take it all in.

She's missed this. Being with him like this. And it goes without saying, she's missed him.

And this moment, when they are fully joined as one, is even more precious and more intense than ever.

"_Cloud." _Her breathy sigh could have been from yesteryear. It's the same as all the times before when they've made love. And different too.

His hands hard on her waist, he begins working himself slowly in and out of her, and she digs her nails into the bed, and tilts her hips up to his. Her breathing is coming in sharp, painful gasps, and she screws her eyes shut in an effort to withstand the delicious pumping. But the steady stroking is maddeningly slow and perfectly calculated to drive her out of her mind. She whimpers and pleads for more as she lets go of the bed, grabs his arms where they are holding her in place beneath him to dig deep grooves into his skin, and he goes just a little bit faster.

"Let me."

Her eyes flare open at the harshly grated out words; she sees him bare his teeth, feels a subtle shift within his body, and understands that their lovemaking has just become something else entirely. The wing and claw are gone but the darkness she sensed in him last time is still present, although it is not as potent as before; he's more forceful and aggressive, and his eyes are shadowed by dissatisfaction and disappointment. There is a harder edge to him, a grim tightness around the corners of his mouth, and a newfound ruthlessness to him that she has never known in him until this night.

He grabs her knees to push them up and back against her chest, breaking the grip she has on him, refusing to let her reciprocate as he holds her down with superhuman strength, and begins slamming into her with more and more force. She responds anyway, with her muscles sucking him in and squeezing him tightly, loving him with her body, as he pounds her into the bed.

He is absolutely pitiless, taking her roughly, without a thought or concern for her, grunting with every fierce plunge as her soft body cushions and absorbs the hard blows from his eagerly, her ecstatic cries nearly drowning out every other sound. Sweat is rolling down his body in rivulets to pool and mingle with hers as the bed squeaks loudly, rhythmically, incessantly, and she lets him vent his rage and frustration on her, submitting to him completely, accepting it all. She wants every part of this man whom she belongs to in every sense of the word, whose possession of her knows no limits and acknowledges no boundaries. She offers herself willingly to him, longing if only for just a brief moment to make him forget everything else, and give him some peace and comfort. Warmth. Shelter. Love.

All the things she wants so desperately for him. To be and provide for him.

Just like earlier, she is crying as he takes her for another spin on that wild, wonderful ride that they've only ever known with each other. She mewls helplessly underneath him as the tears slide from her eyes straight down into her hair, unable to do anything but take him, her body rocking with his thrusts.

The heat and friction he is working up inside her is fierce, explosive, too much to endure any longer, and she whimpers, seeking out that unbearably sweet release, but wanting to ride it out to the end with him even more. Panting painfully, her nails claw at his knees, rake down his arms again to dig deep into the muscles she finds there, using them to help her hold on.

His jaw is clenched and his hands are clamped painfully tight on her legs as the end draws dangerously near, and his strokes are coming in fast and furious.

The dam bursts and she screams out his name as she comes, bucking up so hard, she manages to break out of his hold to slam her hips up. Her body implodes violently around him and for one long, fiery moment, the whole world, and time itself, seems to come to a stop while wave after wave of the most mind-numbing, inconceivable pleasure crashes over her. She barely feels him lunging forward, forcing her back down again; he throws his head back and stiffens, his back bowing, and he lets out a string of curses as his warm seed floods into her. Her body writhes helplessly under him, but he pins her to the bed, and holds her hips completely still as he grinds himself against her until the shudders have faded somewhat from his own body.

He falls forward to brace his hands on the mattress as he hangs over her, both of them coming down still, panting heavily in the otherwise quiet night, and she reaches up a trembling hand to cup his cheek as her muscles slowly let up on their painful contractions around him. Small aftershocks continue to surge intermittently through her body and she almost doesn't resent it when everything resumes moving again.

She stares up at him, this man who is more than simply just everything to her. He is her past. Her present. Her future.

Her life. Her love. Her…

"_...my sweetheart,"_ she whispers over the lump in her throat.

His eyes on hers, he swallows hard, and brings his own hand up to cover hers.

Her wildly thumping heart leaps even harder in her chest.

"_Aeris."_

He's changed again.

But he is still Cloud.

And she has loved him in all his forms.

When next he leaves and shatters her heart again, she'll wait once more.

When he comes back, this Cloud will be lost forever to her too. Just as the innocent youth he'd been so long ago is now lost to her. Just as the tortured soul he'd come back as once before is also lost to her. This battle-wearied swordsman above her that seems lonelier, harder, and colder than all his previous incarnations will also be gone soon.

Her chest heaving still, she drags him down to her as silent tears seep out of the corners of her eyes, her heart aching for all her Clouds that she has loved and misses and yearns for.

But when he returns again, in whatever new guise he will be in, she will only love him all the more—her love for him is the one thing that will never bend or yield to any other power. It _recognizes_ no other power.

He can only ever be perfect to her.

But, _oh_, how she wishes she didn't have to miss out on seeing him grow and become all of these things. Burying her face against his neck, she breathes him in even as she weeps with all the overwhelming tenderness and love he always makes her feel and brings out in her.

"Thank you."

_Oh gods._ She feels his lips against her eyelids and she shudders and cries harder, her hands curling to fist protectively in his hair.

The worlds are changing again as the battles with the Heartless are dwindling down at last and the darkness is being driven back and defeated in every corner of the galaxy. Light and hope is more prevalent everywhere now. Peace finally looks within reach someday. For everyone and everything.

Except for him.

He still has a long way to go before he can return here.

But when he comes home to her again, she will welcome him back into her arms and into her body. Just as he is already in her heart. And they will be complete once more.

And one day, when everything is finally over, she will find all of him again.

Forever _will_ be theirs.

"I love you."

* * *

Well, sorry for the long wait to update again but it's finished! And thank you to kikofreako and clow-san for reviewing the last chapter! Until next time...


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